Managing a long-term mobilisation for a rail concession

The Client

The contract award for the rail concession was announced six months prior to the Start Date.

The Challenge

In mobilisation terms, there was a long time between the Concession Award and the Start Date. This meant that a variety of changes to the concession needed to be managed during mobilisation, including delivering a number of obligations in order to meet the requirements for the certificate of commencement.

Why CAS Max?

CAS Max had managed the bid phase of this project, so we understood the issues and had existing relationships with key partners. Recent mobilisation experience also put us in an excellent position to manage this programme.

What did we do?

With a team of around 70, we needed to find office space near the current incumbent, to facilitate the handover. The long lead-time between award and Start Date meant we needed to manage the project very carefully, so we began by developing the project plan, risks and assumptions with Workstream leads, and presenting those to the Client for sign off.

Mobilisation was managed internally on a strict weekly cycle with detailed reviews and updates to all our plans, and weekly governance meetings to ensure everything was progressing on schedule. These updates were shared with the client on a fortnightly basis.

This tight control of the project helped us to manage the budget over the period, and decide the optimum time at which to bring key people into the project.

The Outcome

The certificate of commencement was awarded two days before the concession was due to start. Evidence for all Start Date and pre-Start Date obligations was provided before the concession Start Date.

After the Concession began, we managed the contributions to the client’s lessons learned. Internal lessons learned were captured through a questionnaire and workshop for future mobilisations by the parent company.